Sunday, June 12, 2005

While DNA evidence has been a hot topic regarding the Book of Mormon, another interesting application involves the descendants of Joseph Smith. A recent Deseret News article reports that DNA evidence has been used to rule out the possibility that Joseph Smith was the ancestor for three people suspected of being fathered by Joseph with polygamous wives. Other alleged descendants will be tested later, if all goes well. Thanks to Mike Parker for sharing this story with me.

I want to say something about the alleged plural wives of Joseph Smith. I say this as a LDS who has no problem with plural marriage. The prophet could reinstate polygamy tomorrow and it would be fine with me.

However, I have my doubts that Joseph Smith ever had a wife other than Emma Hale Smith during his life. There are three reasons for my doubts. (1) The testimony of Emma Smith. (2) The statements of Joseph Smith himself. (3) The lack of DNA evidence to support the contention. Smith had 9 children with Emma and they have 2,000 known descendants today. Yet no scrap of DNA to be found among the descendants of any of these dozens of women. (4) Rich Deem believes Joseph Smith was married to all these women and Rich Deem has a rare knack for being wrong. It is also interesting that neither the Q-P36 lineage nor the X lineage can compell Deem to admit the possibility of Middle East origin for any Native American. Yet, the total absence of DNA evidence in the case of JS polygamy doesn't seem to give him a moments hesitation. Where is the Joseph Smith DNA Deem?